It’s June, and the sun is showing its face providing us some beautifully hot days – and what do consumers want to eat on a sunny day……? Ice cream of course!

So, it’s probably not surprising that one of our most recent projects involves ice cream and sorbets. The problem on this project was caused because the products were normally packaged in pots that come ready printed from a supplier based in Italy. However, because of restrictions caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, the pots for these flavours could not be imported.

Having already sourced additional blank pots from a UK supplier, the manufacturer was working with its existing printer to apply the relevant product information around the circumference of the pots, but was struggling to find lids. 

Faced with the prospect of not being able to keep up its supply to major food retailers at a time of peak demand, this family farm based in Somerset, needed an alternative solution, and fast!

As they also made a range of other natural yogurt, milk and butter products, their only option based on the timescales available was to consider using lids that were already printed with information about another flavour. However, due to space limitations, the incumbent printer was only confident of being able to cover 90% of the existing information in the lids. However, the manufacturer wasn’t entirely happy that this solution would reflect well on their brand identity and maintain consumer confidence in their products. Based on a recommendation from their customer, who had previously used us, we were approached for our ideas.

We worked collaboratively with both the manufacturer and the existing printer to develop a solution, which in the end utilised the best of the skills available from each print company.

Croft Printing was able to demonstrate our past experience of precision applying labels by hand and offered a solution that would cover 99% of the information on the substitute lids. We were also able to satisfy any concerns that the label would become unstuck, particularly whilst being stored in or retrieved from freezers for sale or consumption.

Having shown them proof of how the label would look on the lid, and how we had been able to enlarge the size of the label to increase its coverage lid, Croft was appointed to precision hand apply the lid labels and the existing printer appointed to print both lid and pot labels to ensure continuity of colours. Block out material was used to ensure all information underneath was invisible. In fact, the finished over label on the lid blended in so well it was virtually impossible for the untrained eye to know a packaging correction had taken place. Croft Printing is able to over label a range of different types of pots including yoghurt pots with lids.

Commenting, Marilyn Briggs from Croft Printing said, “Croft Printing work with a range of B2B companies who are great at what they do and take pride in how they present their products and services in their printed materials. We are here to fix packaging problems and if that means working alongside other printers to find the best overall solution we believe this is best approach.  It is the best way to offer fast solutions to problems and help customers to avoid costly delays in manufacturing or penalties from retailers.”